Baubeau de Secondigné

Baubeau de Secondigné was born in Bahia Blanca, Argentina to an Argentine mother and a father of French origin who was an aviator in the Navy. A member of an art-loving family, her sensitivity pushed her from a very young age to draw and she followed in the footsteps of her ancestor, Procesa Sarmiento, an early Argentinean woman painter. When she was 16 years old, Marcela joined the Manuel Belgrano School of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires and graduated four years later. Her surname became her pseudonym. Her passion for drawing, and the pleasure she derives from it, guide her work as a painter. The artist vacillates freely between abstraction and figuration. Her ultimate goal is summed up in one word: colour. Like her idol, Matisse (French artist of the nineteenth - twentieth century), she seeks to make colour a full-fledged object, the painting’s centre of attention. She begins her creation with a preparatory draft in pencil or charcoal, then adds splashes of colour here and there with big brushes or spatulas, before putting the canvas on the floor and letting go by projecting the colour on the canvas, whether in acrylic, oil, pigment or ink. She then constantly corrects, clears and improves the work. Her originality is based in the plurality of her creative process. One day inspired by the state of the society that concerns her, she paints, for example, the fate of prostitutes. The next day, she will choose to paint imaginary landscapes, circus scenes or animals, often horses, which the artist honours with her masterful drawing, accurately transcribing their movements. Nonetheless, her paintings have a common point: they often place the child as a symbol of what their parents (humanity) should do, namely, be respectful, attentive or know how to remain quiet. All of her works are a testimony to the delicate balance of life in which symbols or the recycled materials she uses awaken our civic and environmental awareness. In perpetual motion, Baubeau de Secondigné’s canvases are like the world, "a dance in which the man and the elements will never stop spinning."